Yes, I know.  There are many things wrong with this great country of ours, more than you could ever imagine.  Yet, in spite of its faults it is still the best country on the planet.  The reasons why it is the best are many but most important of all are the reasons why the founding fathers (and mothers, I’m sure) sought to keep their new country free of the tyrannies that they escaped from in Europe, namely those of the state and with much greater difficulty, those of the church.  This principle of the separation of powers is referred to in our Constitution.  Yet there are some newcomers who are trying to promote that this separation of powers be abolished and there are those politicians who agree or pander to those who seek to reverse 250 years of progress by rolling back the clock of history by some 1,000 years and amending it at the same time in a manner so as not to offend anyone.  Accompanying this new form of treason are those idiots who are ready to go along with the idea of a third or possibly longer number of terms for the office of President of the United States.

All of this reminds me of what has taken place and what is taking place in preparation for the November 2016 elections.  As for myself I have never had as much interest in Politics as I have had this year than in all of the previous years.  Why?  Maybe it’s because of the new kind of turmoil on the international scene that there appears to be so much more at stake this year.

I am a registered Republican but I never vote according to party dictates.  I prefer to call them as I see them so I guess that qualifies me for neither party.

Early in the game I thought of Hillary with her extensive resume as being Presidential material, even though she curses like a truck driver, no offense intended against truck drivers,  but as time went by with more and more of her baggage and documented lies coming to the surface which were reported in the papers or on TV, I changed my mind.  And I’m not referring to those nonsensical email and server violations.  I’m sure that many of our esteemed politicians have been guilty of such unintentional ‘errors’ at one time or another during their illustrious careers.  What irks me more than anything of all of the issues that she is or was involved in is the denial of aid during the attack on our Embassy in Benghazi when four of our people were brutally tortured before they were killed.  I watched the last inquiry when Hillary was questioned for an entire day and she basically came out of it smelling like a rose.  That’s because the politicians, who are not as smart as they think they are, asked the wrong questions.  At no time during that ‘inquisition’ was she asked anything about the protocols or procedures for either sending or denying aid that was officially requested through channels nor who was ultimately responsible for the approval of or declination of such aid. The first time that she was asked any questions relating thereto, her response was a callous, “What difference does that make now”, or words to that effect.  If you saw the photos of the bodies that were mutilated and sexually abused, you would say that it does make all the difference.

I briefly thought about Sanders, very briefly once I reminded myself that many of his ideas were attempted by the Soviets almost 100 years ago and we all know how that turned out.

When the Republicans put up for display some 16 candidates, I said to myself, “What madness”, and, “What a total waste of money”, all because some individual who wants to run can do so whether or not they are truly qualified.  And what none of them seem to realize is that a national election is no different than a gigantic popularity contest.  In other words, no matter what you stand for, unless you are a gifted and mesmerizing orator, if they don’t know you or of you, they just won’t vote for you, the exception being that if you are a loyal party member and will do exactly what the party tells you to do.

When I think about Trump, who I am not telling you to vote for, I am completely floored that not only the Democrats, including the present regime, despise him intensely and are continually taking out their frustrations on him but that the Republicans are doing exactly the same thing.  It would seem that the Republican Party is of the mindset that Hillary will not be a formidable opponent so long as they can select their own candidate as opposed to the actual voters.  Make no mistake, she will most likely decimate any of the bozos that the Republican Party would pick to go up against her.  The only one who has a chance of beating her is the one they don’t seem to want, Trump, yet they are trying their best to eliminate him via the dissemination of all kinds of innocuous accusations and innuendoes and sometimes blatant statements made by some that they will do all that they can in order to stop him

Why is that so?  You certainly can’t buy him, not with his ten billion dollars, you can’t.  He is not an entrenched and long time member of the ‘Beltway Club’.  So he doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut and blurts out damning statements without thinking them through.  He is only saying those things that most of us only think about but lack the courage speak out in public.  Remember, it was the Donald who blurted out about the wall and our long standing immigration problems, after which almost all of our politicians, in both parties, began to pick up on the issues of the wall and immigration in general.  What is the Republican Party afraid of?

One thing that has to be changed is the Electoral College System.  I learned about that when I was in High School.  It sucked then and it sucks now.  Maybe it was the only viable way back when we rode around via horse and buggy and we didn’t have any of the means of communication that we have today.  Oh, excuse me, we did have smoke signals and pony express.  It is time, no, it is long overdue for this antiquated and obsolete system to be updated and brought into the 21st century.

A long time friend told me years ago that it doesn’t matter who you vote for or who gets in because everything will still be the same and nothing changes.  Maybe that’s what they are afraid of, losing the sinecure for which they have spent the last 200 years building up.  Nevertheless, in this country you can still vote for whatever party or candidate you desire.

But enough of politics.  Que sera, sera.